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pm ET A reporter for the Palm Beach, Florida Post reports personally witnessing voting machine irregularity in her own local precinct. An election worker was apparently explaining to voters needing help with the touch screens that
they may be especially sensitive, and that you had to press a certain way. During the demonstration, though, voters could
plainly see the screen recording a “Yes” on a referendum issue as a “No” vote. The reporter did not
go on to say whether the vote accidentally counted...
Voting Expert: Widespread Election Fraud Again
Harris tells Alex Jones Show she has acquired software for big three companies, stories of mass voter intimidation,
arrests, machine meltdowns proliferate
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Tuesday, November 7, 2006
Vote fraud crusader and rights activist Bev Harris has told the nationally syndicated Alex Jones Show that she is in possession
of voting software used by the big three voting systems companies and is now in a position to completely expose the true scale
of electronic vote fraud, as a cascade of stories about voter intimidation, arrests and machine meltdowns arrived on election
day.
"They aren't even being sneaky about it now," said Harris in summarizing the widespread voting machine failures and election
fraud that unfolded throughout the day, referring to policies whereby voting precincts have imposed complete blackouts on
any indication of their results until the official confirmation from headquarters is given.
Precinct reports are now being treated as illegal and individuals are being charged for even suggesting that precincts
keep tally counts of votes so comparison checks can be conducted later.
Harris also related stories of arrests of those merely trying to ensure checks and balances are taking place as voting
machines fail nationwide, including an entire county blackout in Indiana.
Harris also discussed dirty tricks in Los Angeles, whereby polling precincts remain closed anything to an hour after they
were supposed to open and election workers are putting green lines through ballot papers to denote the location of voting,
knowing full well that this invalidates the paper during the subsequent optical scan. Pollsters were caught telling colleagues
in hushed tones not to let voters know about this scam...
Harris featured in the recent blockbuster HBO documentary Hacking Democracy and said that since appearing in the program she has received death threats warning "we are going to get you,"
and "I hope you die a horrible awful slow death."
She has also been the target of anonymous Internet bloggers who slander voting activists. In one instance further research
uncovered the fact that one of these "agent provocateurs" was a Diebold employee.
But Harris remains undeterred and is now in a position to expose the length and breadth of the fraud after acquiring the
software programs for the other big three voting systems companies aside from Diebold.
Harris exclusively told the Alex Jones Show, "I have now got a hold of the software of the other three major vendors and
won't be releasing it," stating she was in possession of the code used by Election Systems & Software, Sequoia and Hart
Intercivics.
"We're going to be able to compare what they give us with very specific information - dates, times, and serial numbers
of the machines," said Harris...
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2006/071106votefraud.htm
Manufacturers Defend Electronic Voting Machines
Oct. 27, 2006 — With midterm elections less than two weeks away, some critics are raising doubts about the reliability
of electronic voting machines, but the machines' manufacturers say they are sound.
"The equipment has been tested by independent agencies and federal agencies," said Mark Radke, the director of marketing
for Diebold, the company that makes the machines.
Radke also told "Good Morning America" that the units that didn't have paper receipts had the same encrypted software as
machines that printed out receipts.
Approximately 40 percent of Americans will use these machines to vote in November.
Casting a ballot with the touch of a screen is a new system that voters in at least 33 states will use on Election Day,
but some critics are skeptical about the machines' reliability...
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2610298
Expert warns of voting chaos
By Jason Cato
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday,
April 26, 2006
Expect chaos during the May 16 primary election, a voting expert testified Tuesday during
the first day of a federal court hearing that could delay Allegheny County's use of new electronic voting machines.
"You need as much time as you can get, because it's critical to carrying out an effective election without disenfranchising
a bunch of people," said Frederick Voigt, 63, a Philadelphia lawyer who helped that city convert to electronic voting machines
in 2002.
The problem with Pittsburgh's crossover is time. Without properly trained poll workers and properly educated voters, expect
"delay, confusion, even chaos," Voigt said. ..
By Lara Brenckle
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, April 20, 2006
When John Tague Jr. tried to vote in the last election, he struggled to pull the heavy lever
that would validate his choices.
But on Wednesday, the 59-year-old Greenfield man cast a vote with the push of a button -- and helped county officials show
the ease of the new electronic voting machines.
"They can't create a machine that will work for everybody every time, but we can maximize that," said Tague, who has muscular
dystrophy and chairs a city-county Task Force on Disability. "There will be some intimidation factor -- not because it's difficult,
but because it's new. Once you get past the instruction screen, it's pretty simple."
Tague's practice vote followed County Executive Dan Onorato's unveiling of a plan to educate voters about the Electronic
Systems & Software iVotronic election system that will debut in the May 16 primary election....
Readiness is a concern for several groups of voters in Allegheny County. Seven people, joined by the People for the American
Way, filed a federal lawsuit seeking an injunction to bar the county from using the new machines. A judge will hear the case
next week.
Opponents claim the machines were "just selected days ago, (are) entirely new to the voters and election officials, inaccessible
to many persons with disabilities, and have failed repeatedly in other jurisdictions," according to the lawsuit.
Others, such as the voting rights group VotePA, worry about reliability of the machines and integrity of votes.
"The very best case is we will have an election that goes smoothly, but the voters have no assurance that their vote will
be counted," said David Eckhardt, a lecturer in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University and member of VotePA. "The
best case is not acceptable."
Eckhardt and several other members of VotePA said they could not entirely fault the county for rushing to comply with the
primary deadline, because federal and state governments "were very slow to release the standards and very slow to certify
the machines."
"When the county began its process in November, there were nearly no machines certified. It was too early to start, but
too late," Eckhardt said.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/pittsburgh/s_445493.html
Thursday, April 20, 2006 By Jerome L. Sherman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
One voter down, 877,998 to go....
...During yesterday's trial session, Mr. Tague, chairman of the City of Pittsburgh/Allegheny County Task Force on Disabilities,
had little trouble using the iVotronic.
The machine stands at a height of 48 inches, low enough for a voter in a wheelchair, like Mr. Tague. His fictional ballot
asked him to choose the "best ice cream flavor." He selected strawberry.
Mr. Tague expressed concern about voters who have even less limited mobility than he does. Todd Mullen, ES&S's project
manager in Allegheny County, said the company is developing a "sip-and-puff" feature that will aid disabled voters who can't
use their arms.
The issue is one part of a lawsuit filed last week in federal court by a group trying to block the county's use of the
iVotronic. A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday....
...As a backup, the county will also print optical scan ballots during the primary. Voters at sites with long lines will
have the option of using the ballots, which resemble fill-in-the-blank standardized tests. When the polls close, workers will
bring the ballots to a central location for counting.
As the county makes the change from lever machines to computerized machines, security has been a major concern for many
voting rights activists.
The iVotronic stores votes in three separate memory cards, Mr. Mullen said. As the election comes to an end, poll workers
will use a master "personalized electronic ballot," a hand-held unit, to retrieve results from the machine.
Each machine then prints four copies of the results, one to be posted at the site, one for the minority inspector of elections,
and two for a central location.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06110/683620-85.stm
The Ballot Is Open On Electronic VotingE-voting will play a key role in the upcoming U.S. national election, despite ongoing charges that electronic
voting machines are rife with security flaws and may be susceptible to EMI.
Lawmakers in at least 14 states that use DREs are considering introducing legislation requiring voter-verified paper audits
(Fig. 2). At the federal level, Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ) last year introduced the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility
Act (H.R. 2239.IH), which would require a voter-verified paper record for use in manual audits of DREs.
U.S. military personnel will have their own system of e-voting this year, which is also not without controversy. They can
vote by faxing or e-mailing their ballots, but only after they waive their right to a secret ballot. Several independent sources
have questioned the system, called the Electronic Transmission Service, and the choice of the company assigned to manage it,
Omega Technologies. Omega's chief executive, Patricia Williams, has donated several thousand dollars to the National Republican
Congressional Committee and serves on the committee's Business Advisory Council.
As of early September, the U.S. Department of Defense was withholding information about the service. Some editorials have
criticized the service, which also was used in the 2000 and 2002 elections. Omega didn't handle the military ballots in those
elections, but the Pentagon won't say who did. ...
http://www.elecdesign.com/Articles/Print.cfm?AD=1&ArticleID=8879
Compuware, based in Detroit, MI, conducted a thorough technical
analysis of each electronic voting device vendors’ software and hardware
Austin Chronicle February 27, 2004
How Safe Is Your E-Vote?
Elections go digital, but experts fear a crash
By Lee Nichols
Excerpt--
... Hart InterCivic morphed out of Hart Graphics, a printing company founded in 1912. ...
Hart's product is called the eSlate -- a small electronic tablet, of sorts, specialized for casting ballots in elections.
In the summer of 2002, Travis Co. Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir purchased several hundred eSlates and gave them a successful trial
run in the early voting period of the November 2002 elections. ...
Unlike Hart's major competitors, the eSlate does not use a touch screen. ...
Instead, eSlate uses a wheel-and-button system -- the voter turns a dial until the candidate of choice is highlighted,
and then presses a button to select the candidate, never touching the screen. ...
Secondly, eSlate does not use "smart cards" ...
Perhaps most important, the eSlate system has no external connections -- no hookups to phone lines, the Internet, or
an intranet. ...
Initial discrepancies in the primary turnout affect no voting totals
Election officials say they are "going through a learning process" as they try to combine two different voting machine
systems used in this year's elections.
Last month, problems popped up in the reports of the primary election votes.
Officials double-counted some of the people voting in the Sept. 18 special and primary elections.
Miscounted were more than 6,000 voters in a report issued Sept. 21-- three days after the special and primary elections
-- labeled "final printout."
Officials, however, said the additional voters were subtracted in a final tally issued Sept. 23. They added that it affected
voter turnout figures only and not votes in individual races.
The double count was blamed on the state's two different voting systems, the Election Systems and Software Inc. optical
scanners, which counted most of the votes, and the new eSlate electronic voting machines made by Hart Intercivic.
No election results were changed by the double count, according to elections officials.
http://starbulletin.com/2004/10/07/news/story8.html
Sort out facts
BY LEE NICHOLS
Travis County election officials have responded to complaints that voters casting straight-party
Democratic ballots are discovering, when performing a final check of their ballots, that their votes for president have been
changed from Kerry/Edwards to Bush/Cheney. The officials say that, after trying and failing to replicate the problem on its
eSlate voting machines, they have concluded the vote changes are due to voter error rather than mechanical failure.
Gail Fisher, manager of the county's Elections Division, theorizes that after selecting their straight party vote, some
voters are going to the next page on the electronic ballot and pressing "enter," perhaps thinking they are pressing "cast
ballot" or "next page." Since the Bush/Cheney ticket is the first thing on the page, it is highlighted when the page comes
up – and thus, pressing "enter" at that moment causes the Kerry/Edwards vote to be changed to Bush/Cheney.
Fisher stressed very strongly that voters should not rush, but carefully and thoroughly examine their ballots on the final
review page before pressing "cast ballot."
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Noting reports of computer glitches during March 2, 2004 Super Tuesday voting around the country in states that use electronic
voting machines, David Dill suggested the use of "paper ballots" over the ease of touch-screen voting machines. Dill
was a guest on CNN Lou Dobbs Tonight, Wednesday, March 3, 2004.
Transcript available at CNN site updated next day.
Dobbs touched on the subject as well on Tuesday, March 2, 2004
March 02, 2004
Is Electronic Voting a Risk to Democracy?
Meanwhile, Aaron Brown segment featured commentary from noted expert Avi Rubin. Don't miss reading the transcript.
Very to the point material.
Aired March 1, 2004 - 22:00 ET
CNN Aaron Brown NEWSNIGHT
Excerpt of importance
BROWN: This isn't a story about fraud or theft or even incompetence, at least
not yet. It's a story about confidence, confidence that, when you cast your vote, it counts.
It's bad enough that
many Americans feel their individual vote doesn't count because it's overwhelmed by special interests or party politics, but
what if it really isn't counted at all?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): It wasn't supposed to happen
again, the excruciating process of inspecting paper chads, hanging, dimpled or pregnant. And this year, it wasn't the same.
It was worse. Once again, it happened in Florida, an election on a handful of votes, so close, the loser got an automatic
recount, sort of.
ED DION, BROWARD COUNTY ATTORNEY: The results for the two main candidates were exactly the same
as they were on Tuesday night.
BROWN: Most of the votes in this statehouse seat race had been cast on new electronic
voting machines and only the totals were stored in the computer's memory.
AVI RUBIN, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: The
recount on a fully electronic machine is nothing more than the reprint. It will give you the exact same result that you had
before. It's not going to tell you anything new.
BROWN: Something new was exactly what technology was supposed to
provide when Congress voted billions of dollars to modernize the state electoral processes, increased accuracy, build voter
confidence. Early public trials were a success.
LINDA LAMONE, ADMINISTRATOR, MARYLAND BOARD OF ELECTIONS: The voters
who have seen the equipment out at the mock elections that we are doing as part of our voter outreach have -- 99 percent of
them just adore the machines.
BROWN: And how could you not adore them? They're easy to use. They speak your language.
They even enable the blind, for the first time ever, to cast a secret ballot.
COMPUTER VOICE: To cast your ballot,
press nine.
BROWN: Modern, computerized, paperless, and the target of a firestorm of complaints.
The problem
is that voters simply cannot be certain that the software inside the machines has accurately recorded their vote, a programming
error, a hacker attack, or a dishonest technician could affect dozens, perhaps thousands of votes. And without a paper trail,
the only way to check it -- you guessed it -- is to ask the computer.
RUBIN: One of things that I have noticed is
that the more people know about computers and the deeper their knowledge and understanding of computer security, the more
opposed they are to voting machines that don't have a voter-verifiable paper trail.
BROWN: This summer, the software
for the Diebold voting machines that Maryland will use was found on the Internet and given to Rubin and other security experts.
They found it filled with sloppy programming and security gaps. Maryland claims to have fixed those holes.
And then
the state went a step further, giving former NSA code cracker Michael Wertheimer and his team of security pros a chance to
attack the entire system, not just the terminals, but the central computers as well.
MICHAEL WERTHEIMER, DIRECTOR,
RABA TECHNOLOGIES: We were able to exploit many, many security flaws and completely change the election at the state level,
which means changing the database, changing the votes, pretty much having full control of the election.
BROWN: More
security has since been added, but election officials and industry representatives say that keeping an election honest depends
on more than software.
LAMONE: I have got a great staff and a great group of people out in the counties, all of whom
are dedicated to making sure nothing like that happens. If it does, the person that does it is going to jail.
REP.
RUSH HOLT (D), NEW JERSEY: Some elections officials have said to me, but we've been using these electronic machines for several
years now and we have never had a problem, to which I say, how do you know?
BROWN: Congressman Holt is sponsoring
a bill in Congress that would require more stringent standards. He says it's a question of trust, but trust is getting harder
to find.
And it didn't help that Diebold's CEO, Walden O'Dell, sent out a fund-raising letter, saying he was committed
to deliver -- quote -- "electoral votes" to the president, nor that California officials found that uncertified software and
unapproved machines had been widely used in the recall election for governor. Ironically, the worst that could happen might
well be that nothing will happen.
WERTHEIMER: I'm worried that complacency is going to set in. And come November,
the attackers will have done their reconnaissance. They will have a better idea. And if we don't continue to improve the security,
change the software, make it a better system, we're asking for trouble.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: A story just
beginning.
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